Thursday, February 7, 2013

This is not my idea! All credit goes to Linda Meuse from Notes from the Story Room and her blog post on 12-1-12. Linda, awesome story & idea - love it. The story is called the Sheltering Tree; it is about a little fur tree who kept a host of animals warm on a snowy winter day. Linda's story is draw and tell, but I changed mine a bit by making a larger tree and having little "lift the flap" holes. The tree is green posterboard and the flaps were cut with an exacto knife. The animal pictures are from Google images. I hot glued popsicle sticks to the back of the tree to give it some sturdiness, and a toilet paper roll (ha!) is also glued to the back to act as a "handle."

I have a mixed age group of kids at a local daycare, and they respond really well to this type of activity. Walking around the room and letting the children see inside the holes was a lot of fun and the kids loved it.

I used Linda's original story, delightfully simple and easy to tell, and it's available in a Google document from her blog post.

Miss Courtney is our Flannel Friday host today & all information about Flannel Friday and all its goodness can be found on its site.﻿

Friday, November 16, 2012

No surprise and I'm sure some of you talented people have flannelized it. I enjoy telling this with my old lady puppet. My pieces are laminated paper and they slide (pretty) easily into her belly. The kids get a MAJOR kick out of seeing the 10 layer cake, especially, go all the way down. (The words to the story, by the way, are written on the backs of all these pieces. Shhhhhh!)

There are some fun storytelling techniques you can do with this story. The kids always repeat the final refrain "that Thanksgiving pie that was MUCH TOO DRY!" As the story progresses and you are adding more and more items, I also like to sway from side to side as I'm telling it and the kids join in on this. It is also fun to do a low and grumbly voice for the cider "that wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her."

Older preschool children enjoy this and I've found it to be absolutely perfect for kindergarten and first grade.

Flannel Friday is today! The Flannel Friday website is a great place for information. Tracey at 1234 More Storytimes is the lovely hostess for today.

Friday, October 12, 2012

These are dollar store turtles sunning themselves on "rocks" by the "lake". They're having a GREAT day until, uh oh!, who is that sneaking out from the grass? Ssssss...it's Mr. Snake! "Agh! said the turtle and he jumped in the lake!"

How many turtles are left? Let's count them.

I didn't use a specific rhyme for this - instead, we just talked through our turtles sitting in the sun on the rocks until Mr. Snake comes by to cause trouble! Then we recounted turtles and so on. I did this for all three age groups & it was successful - the pre-k got into it the most & that was great. This was a bit of a last minute effort that turned out, for the most part, pretty well! The group I visited today doesn't do well with longer puppet shows, so my standby option of the Tortoise and the Hare was out.

If you are curious about the prop itself - that's just a box covered with paper and gray felt rocks.

I am happy to be hosting Flannel Friday today; a dream come true! Check out the FF page for all the details and the Pinterest page is beyond fab!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

What an honor to be hosting Flannel Friday today - dream come true! So many wonderful treasures for all of us to be inspired by.

There's cute sheep to count over at Miss Mary Liberry. The activity was inspired by a book but turned into a color AND number recognition game. She even shares her super cute pattern!

Miss Courtney has a match game for community helpers and the tools they might use. She uses community helper puppets as flannel pieces and handmade tools to visually describe their work. She's also got a good song to use for this theme (we may need more info on the "firefighter pokey"!)

Lisa at Libraryland presents some marvelous storytime props inspired by Future Librarian Superhero. She's got a house with windows, a barn, and a black one for stick puppets. Isn't Flannel Friday so amazing for inspiration?

Amanda at Trails and Tales has great ideas for birds and extended ideas helping the children interact with their environment. She includes a link to a chickadee pattern that is oh so lovely and includes an adorable bird's nest being built on her head!

Miss Mollie has a flannel version of Way up High in the Apple Tree - a storytime favorite for sure!

Dorothy of the Wielded Pen has an ever changing chameleon to share with everyone. She brings up something very important, too: don't forget about animal print flannel pieces...they're a resource!

Lucy at In the Children's Room brings you an easy, colorful idea for presenting dots and art in storytime. What a great reminder that art can be found in so many places, even for the little guy who can only draw a squiggly line.

Sarah at Read it Again has a timely flannel (at least in my state where the Fair opened this weekend!) She was inspired by Ram Sam Storytime to create fair food on a stick and sing about it to a catchy tune. She also reminds us that craft foam is a lovely alternative to flannel, in case anyone wants to branch out (check out her pizza made of craft foam...YUM!)

Katie at Story Time Secrets says G is for Gumball. She was inspired by a jump rope rhyme you might remember, too, and she has a great idea that works on many levels. And all kids like gumballs, right?

Carolyn at Risking Failure brings us just a lovely idea for bears (non fiction) and uses (what looks to be) cookie sheets as magnetic backdrops so the kids can move things around and match facts as they see fit. A very lovely job indeed!

Everybody's favorite cat is back! That's Pete the Cat and his four groovy buttons brought to us by Cate of Storytiming. We all love you, Pete!

I'm Sarah, your happy hostess, and my Flannel Friday contribution for this week is a little prop I used successfully for 5 Little Turtles.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

I bought Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O'Connel for my son at a grocery store checkout line (ha!) and I tell ya, he loooves it. I've wanted to "make" it for over a year and I finally did it! In the story, a witch moves into a haunted house that 10 ghosts live in. She gets the ghosts out by scaring them with her spooky props (or dressing up as something spooky - like a vampire). It was a pinch labor intensive, but I think I'll get some wear out of it. Though I love the book and intended the house to be FOR the book, I have found it cumbersome to actually use. I've updated this post below and added a ghost rhyme a co-worker found online for me, and it seems to work a lot better.

The haunted house itself is made of a box lid. The ghosts in the haunted house are made of cardstock with a small magnet on the bottom. I needed a way to get them in and out pretty easily, and magnets just seemed to be a good idea. The back of the house is below. The ghosts extend past the curtains by a bit so they are easy to take off as they get scared away.

Here is a cute ghost rhyme found on Twigglemagazine.com that turns out to be super cute for this house. Obviously, you'll change it to Ten Little Ghosts and adjust accordingly. I added my felt faces to sticks so they can pop out, scare the ghost, and then be put back. All in all, this rhyme works better than the original idea I had - one of those cases where the book works better on its own!

Five Little Ghosts
Five little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a funny skeleton and chased one ghost away.
Four little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a giant monster and chased one ghost away.
Three little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a tiny spider and chased one ghost away.
Two little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came an ugly witch and chased one ghost away.
One little ghost in a haunted house at play,
Along came a big fat cat and chased the ghost away.
Can you find the ghosts and say:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ghosts come back and play!

Flannel Friday is having a Halloween Extravaganza today; Miss Mary is hosting the Boo Bash! You can get overloaded with Flannel Friday fun over at Pinterest. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Friday, September 21, 2012

I found this idea on Inner Child Fun and it is basically cute overload. These donuts {please do not fall out of your chairs!} are made of socks from the dollar store. You cut the toe off, roll them, and decorate - check out the Inner Child Fun link for the details.

I adapted the familiar rhyme so many of us use already:

12 little donuts in the donut shop
Yummy and warm with sprinkles on top
____ came along with a quarter to pay
She took one home and ate it right away...Yum! Yum!